Friday, January 25, 2013

It's time for the Papertrey Ink monthly blog hop! The challenge is black backgrounds, so I took it as a perfect opportunity to try the chalkboard stamping technique. I followed the terrific tutorial posted by Betsy Veldman here. It takes some time, but it looks so cool!

I started by embossing the large In Bloom flower in the corner. I masked it to add the leaves on each side, embossing them right away so I wouldn't smudge anything when I did the words. I used sentiments from several different PTI sets to build my sentiment cluster. I wanted to mirror the bloom in the opposite corner. Once those were all embossed, I added the shadowing with Fresh Snow ink. I used a white colored pencil to add a few lines, and then sponged areas of the card with ink to mimic chalkboard dust. For a final touch, I punched three tiny hearts from Limeade Ice to pull in my card base color. Quite happy with the result!

Thursday, January 24, 2013

By request, I made a baby shower card for a friend last week. She wanted a card for a girl, so I pulled out a soft pretty pink and my Baby Button Bits stamp set.

Isn't that precious? I embossed the Sweet Blush cardstock with a Cuttlebug folder for all those lovely words. I layered a narrow strip of Basic Grey paper on white cardstock behind the sentiment stamped on a Labels Four diecut. I colored the letters with Copic markers, aiming for an ombre effect. Love the look! A knotted piece of sheer ribbon was added to the button, which takes the place of the "O" in the sentiment. Very simple, but oh so sweet!

Thursday, January 10, 2013

I was recently asked to create a birthday card for a friend's mom. Daisies are her favorite flower, so I just had to use this pretty image from the Friendship Jar series by Papertrey Ink.

The flowers look so sweet in the mason jar! I stamped the daisies first and colored them with Copic markers. Then I stamped the jar over top and finished with the blue water. I cut out the entire image using both scissors and an exacto knife. That took some extra time, but I love the way it looks against the kraft card base. I stamped the kraft with a text background image using kraft ink and then sponged around the edges of the card. I added some patterned paper and blue scallop trim at the bottom, as well as along the inside of the card at the fold. It dressed it up quite nicely!

I used the jar label die along with a "celebrate today" sentiment on the jar, and then added a "happy birthday" sentiment inside the card. I really wanted to incorporate the number 70 somehow since it's her mom's 70th birthday, but nothing I had would work. Let's just say that I bumped several items higher up on my wish list while I was making this card! lol

I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I think the card captures the feeling of nostalgia just perfectly. Shoot, I would be thrilled to get this card! :) I may make another one or two to keep on hand.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Did I mention new goodies in my last post? I took advantage of some great sales last month at a few favorite stamp companies. This adorable Wryn image is from Tiddly Inks. Click on the link in my sidebar if you want to check them out. They are releasing some new clear stamp sets right now. I particularly love all the cute Wryn sets. :) This one is called Sweets For My Sweet.

Coloring this cute girl was quite fun! I pulled out my Copic markers and then added glitter to the lollipops. Naturally! I seem to be putting glitter on everything lately. You can see it in the close-up below. You can also see the subtle polka dots on her dress better.

The sentiment is from a Papertrey Ink set called Cupcake Collection. It makes a sweet thank you card! :)